I put some of the blame on hockey's culture of playing through injuries. Instead of recovering properly players are doing permanent damage to their bodies. Combine this with all the damage star players take with the slashing and runs that go uncalled, and you have a recipe for short careers.
The margin of success is so small, even the stars cannot keep it up for very long. I think I saw some stats showing that forwards now peak from 24-26 and most are out of the league by 28-30. You either need to fix things to keep players healthy (change/enforce rules to limit injuries, and stop playing through them to heal everything properly regardless of the playoffs), or change your drafting/trading/development strategy to accept players having shorter more disposable careers.
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